her life. Apparently she had forgotten his very existence. 

 “Ahem!” he began nervously. 

 “Ahem!” she retorted so promptly that he almost fell off his precarious perch. “Did you ring? Number, please.” 

 “I wish I knew whether you were laughing at me or not,” he said ruefully. 

 “When?” 

 “All the time.” 

 “I am. Your darkest suspicions are correct. Did you abolish my devilkin?” 

 “I drove him back into his trapdoor home and put a rock over it.” 

 “Why didn’t you destroy him?” 

 “Because I’ve appointed him guardian of the rock, with strict instructions to bite any one that ever comes there after this except you.” 

 “Bravo! You’re progressing. As soon as you’re free from the blight of my regard, you become quite human. But I’ll never come again.” 

 “No, I suppose not,” he said dismally. “I shan’t hear you again, unless, perhaps, the echoes have kept your voice to play with.” 

 “Oh, oh! Is this the language of science? You know I almost think I should like to come—if I could. But I can’t.” 

 “Why not?” 

 “Because we leave to-morrow.” 

 “Not across to the southern coast? It isn’t safe. Fever—” 

 “No; by Puerto del Norte.” 

 “There’s no boat.” 

 “Yes, there is. You can just see her funnel over that white slope. It’s our yacht.” 

 “And you think you are going in her to-morrow?” 

 Prev. P 17/148 next